Digital broadband broadcast networks enable end users to receive digital content including video, audio, data, and so forth. Using a mobile terminal, a user may receive digital content over a wireless digital broadcast network. Digital content can be transmitted in a cell within a network. A cell may represent a geographical area that may be covered by a transmitter in a communication network. A network may have multiple cells and cells may be adjacent to other cells.
A receiver device, such as a mobile terminal, may receive a program or service in a data or transport stream. The transport stream carries individual elements of the program or service such as the audio, video and data components of a program or service. Typically, the receiver device locates the different components of a particular program or service in a data stream through Program Specific Information (PSI) or Service Information (SI) embedded in the data stream. However, PSI or SI signaling may be insufficient in some wireless communications systems, such as Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) systems. Use of PSI or SI signaling in such systems may result in a sub-optimal end user experience as the PSI and SI tables carrying in PSI and SI information may have long repetition periods. In addition, PSI or SI signaling requires a large amount of bandwidth which is costly and also decreases efficiency of the system.
The first time a receiver device is used, a blind service discovery/channel search is performed. Also, when a terminal is switched off and moved to a different location, a new blind search is also performed. Usually, a mobile TV application also runs background channel search from time to time in order to detect possible new services. Unfortunately, blind service discovery is relatively slow in conventional digital video broadcast networks.
As such, relatively faster service discovery/channel search capability in digital broadcast networks would be an advancement in the art.